Weird Weather Encounter
What do you think this was? I was flying around some heavy weather taking off out of Medellin. Night IMC, lightning flashing all over the place. We were on the SID because of all the terrain and had to fly into the green/yellow radar returns. We were getting nonstop St. Elmo’s Fire. Then all of the sudden, our radome lit up like a Christmas tree. A continuous cone shaped plume of purple/pink glowing plasma engulfed the windshield. It literally looked like we were the space shuttle reentering the atmosphere from space. I don’t think it was a lightning strike because there was no evidence of anything on the walk-around and it wasn’t a quick flash... it was a constant almost “blow torch” look. Any ideas?